


Death Days

by Linnet



Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: Actual Tacos, Drabble, Fluff, M/M, Minor Angst, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-10
Updated: 2018-11-10
Packaged: 2019-08-21 16:54:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,358
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16580387
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Linnet/pseuds/Linnet
Summary: Kravitz hadn’t known Taako for so very long before Lup’s return. Long enough, though. Long enough to notice that Taako is different.Some of that is undoubtedly the result of getting a hundred years of his own memory back. Like Taako had been a sketch, a black-and-white film, and Lup had restored his colour.-“Oh, hey boss!” Taako says, unbothered by the flaming sword or the fact that he is the only person in the room that she is not, technically, the boss of. “Blame Barold. He keeps forgetting he doesn’t live here. If we invite you to stay for dinner will you fix it so it recognises all four of us?”“WHAT ARE YOU MAKING?”“Tacos!”The Raven Queen’s feathers rustle. Her beak fades, and she smiles at the twins with a face that is almost human, a smile that is almost warm. Her eyes remain black, but Kravitz happens to know that it’s a stylistic choice, which makes it marginally less terrifying.“THAT IS AN ACCEPTABLE BARGAIN.”





	Death Days

Kravitz hadn’t known Taako for so very long before Lup’s return. Long enough, though. Long enough to notice that Taako is different.

Some of that is undoubtedly the result of getting a hundred years of his own memory back. Like Taako had been a sketch, a black-and-white film, and Lup had restored his colour. Suddenly Taako has habits that Kravitz has never seen before. Taking his hat off to cook, for one thing. That’s new. The first time Taako had cooked for him, Kravitz had watched as Taako, with considerable panache, had removed his hat, thrown his hair up into a bun, and then put the hat back on. Not that Taako isn’t absent-minded enough to have attempted to shower in his hat more than once, but he _always_ left it on to cook. It was deliberate. And possibly, Kravitz had thought, part of the brand.  

But ‘Sizzle It Up’ had been after Lup. Now the kitchen is no longer ‘a Taako-only space’. Lup slides in beside her brother easily, as if there has always been a place for her there. And Taako hangs his hat on the peg by the door, next to Lup’s.

Kravitz stands in the doorframe and watches them move around each other. Taako is doing Lup’s washing up. Lup is stirring Taako’s sauce for him. The whole house smells incredible. They’re sniping back and forth, half chatting, half teasing, and Kravitz isn’t listening so much as he’s watching. Taako is glowing. Lup is too, but that’s more literal, as she moves her flaming fingers around a sizzling pan to get an even heat.

Kravitz doesn’t offer to help them. He has his own place in Taako’s life, and according to Taako, it is not and never will be in the kitchen.

“Duck!” Lup says, and Taako does, letting her pass the pot of boiling hot sauce over his head to the bowl waiting on the other side of the sink.

_Oh_ , Kravitz thinks.

So that’s Lup too. Most of the changes are just... Lup. Her presence, or the memory of, has changed Taako. Even some of his old habits are explained, in hindsight, by Lup. His life had been defined by her, even in her absence. In that, at least, he’s not alone.

Lup’s stone of farspeech crackles to life behind her.

“Lup?” Barry’s voice says, “Are you out doing something interesting or are we just having dinner at Taako’s again?”

“Whoops, sorry babe! I’ll tell you next time!” Lup says, over her shoulder.

“No, you won’t,” Barry sounds like he’s smiling.

“No, probably not,” Lup agrees. “If you leave now you’ll be just in time!”

“What are you making?”

“It’s taco day!”

“I’m on my way!”

As the stone falls silent, Taako turns to Kravitz.

“Babe, would you mind setting the table?”

It used to feel like Taako had somehow expected him to be psychic. They’d argued over the fact that no, Taako couldn’t just cook him dinner and then be upset when Kravitz was busy when Taako hadn’t told him about it more than five minutes beforehand. Once, Taako had been genuinely upset with him for not turning up to a date that he had _never actually invited Kravitz to_. Although that was after Lup, who’d laughed at him for it and gone with him instead, because you didn’t just waste a laser tag night like that.

And Kravitz has known partners who had expected him to be able to guess what they were feeling, which thankfully Taako never does. In fact, he is shockingly open about everything. And maybe that is a Lup thing too, because Taako has friends and then Taako has Lup. Kravitz isn’t sure how he managed to earn Taako’s implicit trust, but he doesn’t think he knows anyone else besides Lup who is blessed with seeing the heart Taako only occasionally wears on his sleeve.

The forgetfulness had been a quirk that neither of them could think of an explanation for besides simple memory loss, until Lup’s return. In a way, he supposes, they had been right. Because Taako and Lup kind of are psychic. In a vague, low-level, non-magic way (he’s checked). It’s probably a twin thing. It had only been a theory at first, but today he thinks he’s confirmed it. He and Lup had finished a job and she’d invited herself over immediately.

“It’s taco night!” She’d grinned, swinging her scythe out of existence.

“Is it?”

“Trust me, skeletor.”

He’d watched her carefully. She definitely hadn’t contacted her brother in any way he could detect, and yet they’d arrived to find that Taako was already preparing dinner for four. He’d even set out a chopping board and ingredients for her.

“Hey, love. What are you cooking?” Kravitz had asked, stepping over the three black cats lined up in the kitchen doorway to give Taako a hug after Lup had released him from her own exuberant greeting.

“It’s taco time, baby!” Taako had laughed, Lup grinning triumphantly behind him. “Now get out of the way.”

Kravitz turns this over as he moves between kitchen and dining room, and he isn’t paying much attention to anything else. Which is, of course, the exact moment that Barry decides to open the door. Without ringing the doorbell.

It had been the Raven Queen’s idea. None of her charges have previously lived outside of the astral plane. Nor have they been planar celebrities. It’s supposed to be for their protection. What she hadn’t counted on was that Taako and Lup consider their homes practically interchangeable, and the mindset is contagious.

“Shit!” Barry yells, hitting the alarm, which is shrieking in a fairly close approximation of a banshee. “Sorry!”

Kravitz _doesn’t_ drop the plates he’s holding. Just. Even when one of the cats streaks between his legs. Into the kitchen.

“Cat!” He yells, not sure if it’s a warning or a command. “Come back!”

It’s probably pointless. It’s almost impossible to hear anything over the alarm. Barry, panicked, is still hitting it, as if hoping that will help. For a moment, Kravitz dithers. Then he dashes after the cat, plates still in hand.

He reaches the kitchen just as the cat passes Lup. Who, naturally, is holding the hot pan.

“Cat!” He yells.

Lup turns to look at him, moves her foot, and trips over the tortoiseshell blob of fur. The pan goes flying. Lup goes flying. The cat lets out a wailing scream.

Taako Blinks.

The pan, which had been on trajectory with his chest, lands back on the hob, contents unspilled. And Taako is standing between Lup and the counter, her head in his hands instead of on the marble.

The alarm dies. There’s a moment of silence. The cat, which had been heading towards Taako, stops, turns, and runs back to hide between his legs.

“This is why you should never cook in nice robes,” Lup says, standing up. “You nearly ruined those.”

“I have spare robes,” Taako says, ‘I’m pretty sure you don’t have a spare body this time.”

“I didn’t think you let your cats in your fucking kitchen,” Lup says, dusting herself off, then she yells; “Babe, how did you turn off the alarm?”

Barry pokes his head into the kitchen, looking contrite. “Uh. I think I broke it.”

Taako picks up the cat.

“Did the big bad man scare you, baby? Did he? Did you run to daddy Taako to protect you?”

Taking a breath to restore his sense of stability, Kravitz puts the plates down the side, carefully.

“Taako, could you pass me another plate? I hope you have enough food for five.”

“Five?” Lup asks, already back to making sure the dinner isn’t burned.

“YOU BROKE MY ALARM.” The Raven Queen says, manifesting in the hallway behind Barry. She takes up most of the space. Her cloak of feathers settles gently around her, as it always does just after she lands. Her wings are already tucked away, but her hackles are raised. The sword is drawn. Evidently she had assumed they were being attacked.

“Oh, hey boss!” Taako says, unbothered by the flaming sword or the fact that he is the only person in the room that she is not, technically, the boss of. “Blame Barold. He keeps forgetting he doesn’t live here. If we invite you to stay for dinner will you fix it so it recognises all four of us?”

He puts the cat down and shoos it out the kitchen. It goes, with some reluctance, darting past the Raven Queen at almost the same speed as it darted in.

“WHAT ARE YOU MAKING?” She says, watching it go.

“Tacos!” Lup says, gesturing to the kitchen.

The Raven Queen’s feathers rustle. Her beak fades, and she smiles at the twins with a face that is almost human, a smile that is almost warm. Her eyes remain black, but Kravitz happens to know that it’s a stylistic choice, which makes it marginally less terrifying.

“THAT IS AN ACCEPTABLE BARGAIN.”

Kravitz had also never had dinner with his boss before Taako. To be honest, he wasn’t entirely sure what she ate, if she ate at all. And finding out that she likes tacos has got nothing to do with Lup, either, that’s just Taako being Taako. Although the suggestion that letting Lup stay in her body would mean twice as much good food had been a key point in persuading the Raven Queen to allow it.

With the extra guest, Taako takes great joy in making a show out of it. He Blinks into the dining room and back with the dishes, ‘just because he can’. Also, Kravitz suspects, because it makes Barry jump every time, which makes Lup laugh. It definitely lasts longer than a minute.

Kravitz is still surprised when Taako uses his magic so thoughtlessly. But they did meet on the cusp of the apocalypse, and there’s no need to save spell slots anymore. Or perhaps Taako used to cast spells that casually before then, before they arrived at this plane. Either way, Kravitz thinks that it’s not just the past that’s changed Taako. It’s the future as well.

Kravitz honestly can’t remember how old he is anymore. Old enough. But he knows exactly how long it’s been since he met Taako. He knows exactly how long it’s been since Lup came back. He remembers his days, now, not as one long stream but as individual moments.

Under the table Taako taps Kravitz’s knee, lightly, three times.

“Can I interest you in a taco?”

“I thought I already had one.” He makes this joke every time. Taako rolls his eyes, but the smiles doesn’t fade.

“Alright, no cheese for you then, you’ve got enough on your own. I guess that means more tacos for the rest of us!”

In the end, Kravitz refuses to beg Taako for his dinner, and Lup has to sneak him some when Taako’s not looking. He looks suitably betrayed, and then gets distracted by Barry’s refusal to have salsa.

“They’re too flat without it, there’s no freshness.”

“I’ve got lettuce, look.”

“I promise we made it mild,” Lup wheedles, trying to spoon some onto his plate.

Kravitz watches them, enjoying the chaos. Somewhere along the way it becomes a competition to see who can eat the most tacos. The Raven Queen eats six. The rest of them admit defeat with little grace and even less dignity.

As Lup hugs him goodbye that night, Kravitz thinks this will be another day he won’t be able to forget.

“My boyfriend, Lulu, let him go,” Taako hangs himself over Kravitz’s shoulder. Lup sticks her tongue out at him, but lets Kravitz go with three quick taps to the chest.

“Your skeletor gives the best hugs, so sue me.”

When they’re gone, Taako doesn’t let him go.

“You were quiet tonight.”

“I think the rest of you are loud enough by yourselves,” Kravitz says. “Is your cat okay?” The tortoiseshell is a rescue, a certain level of scrawny built into her, and she’s Taako’s spoiled baby. And she did get stepped on by Lup.

“The _Raven Princess_ ,” Taako corrects, “Is asleep on the bed and keeping it warm for us. And she’s _our_ cat.”

“Try telling her that.” Kravitz kisses his nose, because he can. “Does she know she’s in trouble?”

“Nobody died! And it was Barold’s fault anyway.”

“Will you let me in the kitchen to do the washing up?”

“Noooo,” Taako whines. “You’re warm, and I want cuddles. It’ll wait until tomorrow.”

So Kravitz resigns himself to being a hot water bottle. It is, he will admit, a benefit of his circulation returning.

“Taako?” He asks, later, when the wizard in question is draped across his chest, letting the cat who Kravitz still refuses to call the Raven Princess sit on both of them. She’s a tortoiseshell, for a start, as if the Raven Queen would be caught dead in anything but black. The fact that all three of their other cats _are_ black suits Taako’s sense of humour exactly.

“Mmm?” Taako is tickling her under the chin, the purr resonating from deep within her tiny body.

“How did you know Lup was coming tonight?”

“Oh, it’s one of my death days.”

The cat continues to purr.

Death days. How many times had Taako died running between planes - seven? And he remembers them. He marks them. It takes a minute for Kravitz to process that one. Long enough for Taako to push the cat off, and sit up to look at him properly. He crosses his arms across Kravitz's chest and rests on them, his hair slipping loose from its plait and curling down around his shoulders. 

“Don’t you keep track of that stuff?”

“No,” Kravitz says, honestly. That’s not how it works. And the story he’d heard from the voidfish hadn’t done dates. Just events.

“Oh, well," Taako counts them off on his fingers, "Tacos if I died, burgers if it was Barry, and anything else was Lup.”

This openness. It’s so matter-of-fact. It’s very Taako, and yet it’s still shocking, somehow.

“She doesn’t have a favourite?” Kravitz scans back through the last few times they’ve had what he’d thought were impromptu family dinners.

“Everything we make together is her favourite. Also she died a lot more than we did, so if we picked one thing we’d get bored of it. That's why we don't do it for Merle either, can you _imagine_?”

Kravitz smiles at that, mostly because Taako does.

“No, okay. That’s fair.” They are quiet for a moment. Taako reaches out a hand and goes back to stroking the cat, who hadn't moved than about two inches. Watching him, content and languid, the nagging discomfort in Kravitz’s head solidifies into a realisation. “Taako, when you invite me for dinners you’ve already cooked, are they…”

Taako puts his head in the cat’s fur. “I thought it was something you’d know.”

Kravitz sits up, pulling Taako with him, and wraps his arms around him properly. The cat mewls a protest, but Taako puts his head against Kravitz’s chest and doesn’t look at him.

“Tell me the dates. I’ll remember them,” he says, because he doesn’t know if sorry is enough.

Taako wriggles closer, digging into the embrace as far as possible, and reels off a list. Kravitz memorises them. Tomorrow he’ll write them down. Not in case he forgets, but in case he gets caught outside of time for too long and loses track of the date.

“You did it once before you got your memory back,” he says, not quite a question.

“I don’t think I knew _why_ it was important. I just… didn’t want to be alone.”

Kravitz closes his eyes and breathes in the lingering scent of spice and Taako’s favourite shampoo.

“Why hasn’t Lup murdered me yet?” She doesn’t do subtle. Just because he doesn't exactly have a body in the same way most people do wouldn't have stopped her from at least trying to cremate him.

“Um,” Taako says. “She said you probably didn’t know.”

“And you didn’t ask me if I did… because?” And that’s what’s bothering him. He’d thought Taako told him everything, but if he hadn’t told him this, then what else is there?

Taako looks at him. “You’re literally death,” he says. “It felt weird celebrating all the times I didn’t meet you.”

And Kravitz laughs. Because of course.

“Taako, I love you so much, and you’re an idiot.”

“Thank you,” Taako says, primly, “But pray, mister ‘you’re an idiot’, how did you think we were that in sync?”

“I was pretty sure you and Lup were psychic,” Kravitz admits.

“Oh,” Taako says. “Well, that too, I guess.”

“Wait, really?”

“No, doofus, we’re not a hive mind.”

Kravitz, still smiling, kisses Taako’s forehead.

“Taako, at this point you could tell me anything and I’d probably believe you.” Taako’s eyes light up. “Oh no,” Kravitz says. “Don’t you dare.”

 

-

 

Kravitz has not had enough coffee for this conversation. 

“Why won’t you call her by her name?” Taako says. “She’s been blessed by your boss. I know she doesn’t have any children besides you guys but if she did they’d absolutely be cats.”

The cat in question is being thrust into Kravitz’s arms without either of their permission, and Kravitz accepts her before realising what he’s doing.

“Taako, I’m wearing black!” He says, and realises he’s calling after Taako’s retreating back. “Also the Raven Queen is not your mother in law, and she definitely hasn’t blessed our cat!”

Taako, ignoring him, has already returned to the kitchen. Kravitz sighs, and puts the cat down. She shakes herself, and immediately goes to find Taako because as the only truly living being in the house, he’s all of their favourites.

“Shut the kitchen door, the cat’s following you!” And because she’s spoiled she doesn’t sit neatly at the door with the others. Kravitz doesn’t want to have to rescue her from under a pancake. Again.

Then the Raven Queen appears in the doorway of their living room.

“THE CAT HAS A NAME,” she says. “ALL LIVING BEINGS ARE NAMED.”

Kravitz stares at her.

“Good Morning,” he says, carefully, “Am I late?”

“NO,” the Raven Queen says. “I AM NOT HERE FOR YOU.” The cat is scampering towards her. She extends a feathered arm, and pets it. “I AM HERE TO SEE MY DAUGHTER.”

It takes Kravitz about two more seconds to realise that there is no sound coming from the kitchen. It’s two seconds too long.

“Taa…”

The Raven Queen morphs back into a delighted-looking Taako.

“Lup!” Taako yells, “He used his accent!”

“Oh my god,” Kravitz says. “Why. Why do you…”

Lup flashes into existence in the living room. “Did you say it? Did you call her by her name?”

“No,” Kravitz says, sourly, suddenly realising that not having to let Lup past the alarm means he will get far less warning time to prepare for her arrival. “It only took me two sentences to see through it.”

Lup is still laughing, and behind her Taako is practically dying.

“Did the cat betray us?”

Kravitz sighs. “Taako went to make breakfast and the kitchen was silent.”

“Dammit, I knew I’d forgotten something,” she grins. Kravitz is not at all surprised that she was in on this.

“Are you staying for breakfast?” He says.

“Oh Taako promised me pancakes for this,” Lup says. “You can take your reaper off, Krav, you’re not at work.”

He hadn’t even realised he’d changed. But he pulls his face back just in time for Taako to kiss his forehead.

“I’m not sorry,” he says.

Kravitz is glad he has eyes in his head so that he can roll them.

“I know.”

Taako by himself is bad enough, but together the two of them are the living embodiment of chaos.

Lup declares that she wants her pancakes with pineapple and chocolate spread. Deciding that it’s far from the worst suggestion either of them have ever made, Kravitz agrees to it. Somehow, the prospect of a chaotic morning is more appealing than a quiet one.

Taako is not the only one who’s changed.


End file.
